Gershwin – I’ll Build A Stairway To Paradise (String Quartet Parts)

Here with an introduction that looks like a (slightly rickety) staircase, this song was included in George White's Scandals of 1922 at the Globe Theatre, New York, conducted by Paul Whiteman, for whom Gershwin was two years later to write Rhapsody in Blue. The song's dancing theme prompted the arranger Bill Thorp to dedicate his version to Fred Astaire; he also originally marked it to be played "horticulturally", an exotic instruction whose only justification seems to be a line from the song's second verse, wherein appears the exhortation "Get busy …. Lizzy", though it has been suggested that the chorus lyric "I've got the blues" originally read "I've got the pinks". The "fair" mentioned in the following line is thought to be the celebrated one held at the Paradise Gardens, Berghald, Switzerland. **** Not for sale in the USA ****

Biography

Thorp, Bill

Bill Thorp, born in 1952, started arranging music, while still at school, as a member of a folk group in which he played string bass. More experience followed with a college based acoustic folk-rock bank, playing violin, viola and piano, which went on to work professionally for two years. Later, in a varied career which included performing with string quartets at some of London's pizza restaurants, he was prompted to arrange music especially for that grouping and situation. Nowadays his playing career ranges from appearing on Renaissance, Baroque and Classical Violin with most of London's period instrument groups, to odd recording sessions on country and western fiddle.